


Lessons

by aishahiwatari



Series: McKirk shorts [7]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Academy Era, Aviophobia, First Kiss, Getting Together, M/M, Some Swearing, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-23
Updated: 2019-04-23
Packaged: 2020-01-24 11:48:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18570856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aishahiwatari/pseuds/aishahiwatari
Summary: Leonard McCoy knows better than to hope.It doesn't stop him feeling like the nerd with a crush on the most popular kid in school when he's around Jim, though.





	Lessons

**Author's Note:**

> This is a self-indulgent mess and a reminder to please be kind to any mature students you know. They're so confused, so much of the time.

Leonard knows better than to hope.

So, he doesn’t hope that he won’t be invited to terrible parties thrown by cadets ten years his junior. Geoff or Christine always make sure he’s included.

And he doesn’t hope that they’ll have anything worth drinking. There are no fewer than three flasks secreted on his person. So far only one of them is empty; nobody has yet thrown up on him or asked if he’ll look at a strange rash they don’t dare tell their regular doctor about.

 Most importantly, he doesn't hope he'll see Jim.

It's ridiculous, really, at Leonard's age, to be harbouring such a juvenile excuse for a crush. Jim is bright and vibrant and everyone knows him. He's won over even those who were the least willing to accept him, and although he has a reputation for being cocky and for sleeping around, nobody seems to actively dislike him. He's invited to all the parties, it seems, but although he's pretty much guaranteed to turn up, it generally isn't long until he's left with one or more new friends who have caught his eye.

Then there's Leonard. He is good at what he does. He's an excellent doctor, and he used to run the emergency department, so situations that send his fellow recruits running don't phase him. He's not willing to play the games their superiors lure them into in what counts as sport among those who have been hardened to the pain of others. He's civil to his colleagues but accepts generally that he doesn't have much in common with them, and he doesn't have much time for the social intricacies of having new friends anyway.

So basically, it's like he's the nerd with an unrealistic crush on the most popular kid in school. He doesn't indulge it. Meets Jim's eyes and gives him a nod when they pass in the halls. Responds to the occasional comm message he gets about their shared classes. Tries not to stare at his ass during hand to hand.

That one's for multiple reasons. Gaila punched him right in the kidney the last time he was distracted by the thin sliver of skin exposed at Jim's waist when he lifted his arms to guard.

Anyway, Leonard has always been one to fall in love easily. He certainly isn't ready for another relationship yet. So he drifts at this party, makes some polite conversation with a girl in his Xenobio class who's been making eyes at him and thinks he hasn't noticed. She's alright. If he thought she was looking for something casual, he might take her up on it. She's not.

His wanderings take him up and he steps out onto the roof of the accommodation block in search of blissful fresh air, only realising then how warm he is, how choked the air inside had been with the combined scents of alcohol and teenaged emotion. Suddenly he can't face drowning in that again. 

He swears he was never that young, himself, walks to the edge of the roof, to the low wall, and sits, looking out at the campus. It's grey and silver and transparent aluminium, nothing like what he might have thought of as home, before. He's pleasantly drunk, a little fuzzy, so even though it's somewhat cold in his sweater and jeans it's still better than sweltering in there. He's still present, has promised Christine he won't leave, for a few hours, could show his face if she comms him.

He thinks she worries about him. It's sweet, if ultimately unnecessary. He can take care of himself. It's his job to know how to take care of people, and so even though he drinks too much, he eats well and hydrates, exercises plenty. He's alright.

A damn sight better than he had been in Georgia those last few months, anyway. Pining aside -and he's not pining, really, he just wonders occasionally- he's actually not hating any of it as much as he had thought he would. He's bored, of course. There's only so much human drama he can stand, both in class and in the hospital. But it's not like he'll be doing anything exciting once he does qualify as an officer. He might not even make it further afield than Academy Medical, if he doesn't do a little more work on his aviophobia.

With the bourbon burning his throat and warming his belly and maybe making his vision waver just a little, he looks down over the campus, the thought of it making him feel a little ill.

He turns away from the edge and reels dangerously when he spots the figure in the doorway, watching him, glares as he clutches his chest and catches his breath even more than the surprise alone warrants.

"You trying to kill me?" he asks, heart pounding.

Jim just smiles, wide and lazy and a little drunk himself, clearly. But alone. And -Leonard notes with some surprise- not yet bleeding. He looks good. That one's not surprising. 

He comes to lounge on the wall next to Leonard, dangling his legs over the edge, leaning so far that Leonard wants to grab him to pull him back.

"I didn't know you came to these things," Jim says, not quite conversationally, not meeting Leonard's eyes.

"Not to all of them. I get dragged along occasionally. Not really my scene."

"What's your scene?"

Leonard blinks. He doesn't really know how to answer that. He feels like admitting that he'd rather be at home -wherever that is, now, whether alone or in trusted company- would sound too much like admitting to alcoholism. He settles for, "Somewhere with fewer children."

He's not really sure how he expects Jim to respond, thinks maybe he'll take offence, actually, but he just has a sad little smile on his face as he watches a group of cadets cross the courtyard. "They're terrifying, aren't they? They have no idea what it's like out there. They think this is all that matters. They've never had to-" he stops, then, and visibly collects himself. Leonard has never seen Jim so serious before, wonders if something has happened to make him so contemplative. Finally, Jim adds, "They talk like they'll live forever."

Leonard knows that he can't push it, that he risks alienating Jim by delving too deeply into- whatever the hell just happened. "You know, as Captain, you'll be the one perpetuating that illusion."

"You think I'll make Captain?"

Leonard knows he will, and he lets that show on his face until something in Jim's softens.

"Everybody else thinks I'm joking." Jim's eyes are ridiculous. How does a person even look like that?

And Leonard is staring. He should stop. "What the hell do they know?"

That makes Jim laugh, and not in the way that's occasionally heard echoing across campus. It's small and quiet and real, and it makes him wonder what else the outrageous, brilliant man in front of him has been hiding. He wants to know more secrets, selfishly, to take them and keep them for his own.

"You're alright, Bones."

"You know, it's more of a compliment if you sound less surprised."

Jim's eyes light up, and he looks at Leonard with something like contemplation for a moment before clearly thinking better of whatever he'd been about to say. Leonard doesn't know if he's relieved or disappointed because he thinks -if his instincts around this man are correct, and he's beginning to suspect they are- he was just dismissed as an option for casual sex. He doesn't want that, except he really does, still wants to reach out and haul Jim away from the edge. He's there, too, damnit, but he has more sense than this ridiculous, space-faring man.

He needs to be drunker, pulls out his flask to take a swig before offering it to a thankfully silently delighted Jim. It's accepted, Jim's lips soft and pink and plush as he takes a sip.

Jim passes the flask to him, then leans back to stare up at what they can see of the stars through the light pollution. For the first time, Leonard looks with him.

-

Leonard can hear hissing behind him, that distinctive sound of someone furiously attempting to keep their voice down.

He's in the auditorium, was asked by Chapel because she's part of some historical film society and they've had very little turnout for their film showings. It's hardly surprising, Leonard wants to say. The image quality is terrible, the acting stilted and wooden, the special effects laughably unconvincing. And there's just something kind of off about the colours. Leonard's only half watching, has a seat a couple of rows behind all the society members so he can read over his notes. Chapel shoots him a grateful smile every now and then. Everyone else ignores him. That's just fine by him.

Behind, the somewhat one-sided argument -more of a rant, really, with the occasional attempted interruption- reaches fever pitch. Somehow Leonard can neither fully hear that nor the film, catches a few words like "cheat" and "liar". It's not language he hasn't heard before, and he's been called far worse himself, Still, it's unpleasant, and he tries to be as subtle as he can when he turns his head to look at the rows of seats behind him.

His efforts are for nothing; Jim's eyes meet his and lock. Leonard can't look away. Jim is the recipient of the hissing, of all those unpleasant words and more. His date soon notices his drifting attention, too, and storms out. Jim seems to barely notice, but Leonard sees a flicker of doubt in his expression before he shoots a questioning look in Leonard's direction.

Leonard pats the back of the seat next to him in invitation and Jim beams. He vaults over rows of chairs with impressive stealth and sinks into the one beside Leonard. He smells like clean sweat and ozone, and it's a scent Leonard wants to drown in.

"You alright?" he asks, because he's beginning to understand that how Jim looks and how he feels rarely correlate.

Then he actually sees Jim consider lying to him, raises a brow before he can.

Jim looks surprised, momentarily terrified, then resigned. "He- expected more than I was able to give."

"Then you probably shouldn't have fucked him."

It makes Jim splutter to suppress a laugh at what, Leonard gathers, is a rather solemn part of the movie. Chapel turns to glare at them. Jim winks at her. She flushes. Leonard hates his life.

"I was honest with him. He just only heard what he wanted to hear," Jim manages, a few moments later. Again, he won't meet Leonard's eyes, like he expects there to be something there that he doesn't want to see. Chastisement? Rejection?

"You don't deserve that stuff he said to you." Leonard chooses to believe him. What does he have to lose, except his already battered pride? He has so much to gain, like the way Jim's unguarded, wide eyes take his breath away. How can be possibly have earned such a thing with just a few words? "If you didn't lead that guy on, if you were honest with him, it's his own damn fault."

"Yeah. Right." Jim smiles at him, still a little wary, then pleased, then pointed. He nudges Leonard in the side. Looks expectant. Keeps doing it until Leonard rolls his eyes and passes him a flask. "Knew I could count on you, Bones."

Leonard hides his smile by snatching the flask back and taking a swig himself. Jim's shoulder bumps companionably against his.

He doesn't get any damn work done after that.

-

Jim fucks Chapel and then never calls her again.

Leonard doesn't even have it in him to be surprised. He spends his day shift at work with Chapel, listening to her complain about every aspect of it and making the appropriate sympathetic noises, occasionally interjecting when he thinks he can get away with easing her towards the idea that she's not special, that Jim does that to everyone he sleeps with.

Then he goes back to his room and has a drink.

With their schedules, both ludicrous in entirely different ways, sometimes they don't see each other for a while. So it's a week before he notices Jim is avoiding him. And another three days before he can corner Jim in the locker room after- Leonard doesn't even know, some sort of sports practice.

"Wanna go for a drink?" he asks, and sees Jim narrow his eyes warily for a moment before he agrees.

Their conversation is normal enough, for them at least. Jim knows Leonard is neither appalled not impressed by his conquests and so generally does not describe them in any explicit detail, and Leonard knows Jim hates doctors, hospitals and anything resembling proper medical protocol so he doesn’t talk about work.

"Look, I'm sorry about Chapel." Jim says, after his third beer. He's toying with the label, and Leonard doesn't know if his coy behaviour is contrived or not, but he's not interested in it either way.

"It's fine. What you two get up to is your own damn business."

"But- isn't it going to make things awkward for you? To- be around both of us?"

"You don't have to be friends with my friends just because we're-"

Fuck. Leonard stops himself because he's already said too much, and Jim has abandoned coy and gone straight for delirious.

"Are we friends?" Jim asks. He's thrilled. 

Leonard glares at him and sips his drink. "Acquaintances."

"Bones."

"Colleagues."

"Bones!"

"Classmates?"

"Holy shit, we're friends!" Jim nudges, or more accurately shoves him in the side with how excited he is, and Leonard nearly spills his damn drink, bats him away like that huge smile and wide, bright eyes thrill him an entirely normal amount.

"Don't let it go to your head."

Jim does a happy little dance where he sits. He's beaming. Leonard can't believe that one single word means so much, except he's Jim, so of course it does. Leonard is probably the only person he's met all year who hasn't jumped straight into bed with him.

After a while, Jim nudges him again, more gently. "I'm still sorry about Chapel."

"Who?" Leonard asks, to see him laugh, even smiles back a little. It's a nice moment.

"You wanna know something that friends do?"

That has to be a new record. Back to coy and vaguely flirtatious, all lip-biting and long looks from beneath thick lashes within a matter of seconds.

"Besides drink their alcohol and abuse their medical privileges?"

Jim grimaces but is undeterred. He's uncharacteristically serious when he ventures, not without caution. "They help other friends get through their piloting requirement."

"Oh, did you need help with your piloting?" Leonard asks, because the alternative is so much worse. It's so bad it's made even Jim stop and take note, but Leonard isn't worried. He'll work on the piloting thing. He just hasn't had a chance yet, that's all. With the new routine and classes and the job. It's nothing to worry about. 

-

He imagines that the laughter he can hear is directed at him as he vomits copiously into the toilet bowl. It's unlikely, he knows, rationally. Everybody else is back in the hangar, practicing their piloting simulations. He made it roughly fifteen seconds before he had to run.

He can't cope. He can't do this. It's unlikely Starfleet will pass up the opportunity to keep him working in the hospital for as long as possible, but if he can't pass basic piloting he'll never make it as an officer. He'll never be taken seriously. He'll be forever overlooked for promotion, doomed to watch those younger, less experienced and less competent than he become his superiors.

That's not an option. But at that moment, going back in that room isn't either. He leans his forehead against the cool stainless steel of the toilet bowl for one more blissful moment, then lurches to his feet. He knows he looks terrible, splashes his face with water anyway in the vain hope it will make him feel more human, even if he doesn't look it.

And he really doesn't look it. He worked late the previous night, got up as late as he could and forced himself to eat both breakfast and lunch because arguably throwing up was better than passing out. Now, he isn't so sure. At least if he'd passed out it would have been someone else's problem for a little while.

Maybe he can convince the instructor that he came down with something.

Except he needs to pass the damn class, and he can't do that without attending at least ninety percent of them.

Well, that settles it. He'll just have to attend the rest of them. He emails his instructor to let her know he's not feeling well, then turns his comm off and strides away from the shuttle hangar as quickly as he can without actually breaking into a run

It's Friday, and he has no more classes. He's going to get drunk enough that he can't think, and then in the morning he's going to find a therapist.

That's the plan, anyway, until he rounds a corner and almost walks right into Captain Pike. Damnit.

"Captain," he greets, and shrewd, bright eyes that miss absolutely nothing take him in for a moment.

"Going somewhere in a hurry, Doctor?"

Well, at least Captain Pike doesn't insist on referring to him as Cadet. "Not feeling well, Captain. Just on my way back to my dorm. Get some rest."

And Captain Pike doesn't call him on it, but he does narrow his eyes and turn his gaze briefly in the direction Leonard would have to have been walking to get back to the medical student dorms. "Walk with me, Doctor."

"Yes, Captain."

They walk back towards the damn hangar, because of course they do. Leonard feels ill just thinking about it, considers that if he throws up on the Captain's boots at least it will prove his point. The Captain leads him up to the viewing platform that overlooks the hangar, though, rather than walking Leonard back into the sea of red uniforms clustered around the simulators.

"It's easier to teach younger cadets," Captain Pike says, miraculously breaking the silence that Leonard had been stubbornly allowing to continue. "They have fewer learned behaviours that need to be corrected. They're like blank slates."

Nobody has noticed them watching. One cadet is steering the shuttle with the controls and screen behind his back. Someone shrieks. Leonard doesn't really feel like he needs to say anything. 

"There's a reason it takes four years to train our officers. Everybody has aspects of their training that they struggle with. With younger cadets, it's the routine, the responsibility. With the older ones, it's almost always some form of crippling anxiety brought on by fear. Maybe of death. Loneliness. Abandonment."

"Space?" Leonard arches a brow. He's probably skirting dangerously close to insubordination, but Captain Pike just smiles. He's a very attractive, charismatic man. Leonard wants to believe him, but he's old enough to know better.

"It's unusual. But not impassable. The only thing we can't teach is the desire to be here. Do you want to be here, Doctor?"

Leonard very decidedly does not want to be there, in that hangar, at that moment, but it would be petty to point out what they both already know. He thinks of his classes, where he's learning, stretching his mind for the first time in years. Of Chapel, who goes to so much effort to make sure he doesn't feel as excluded as he might otherwise have insisted on being. Of the young people who are entirely too loud, terrifyingly inexperienced and have bizarre priorities. 

Two days ago, one of them shouldered him aside to show him a medical procedure he'd never even heard of, and they saved his patient's life. Another stayed after class to help him find some obscure medical journals on the academy system he doesn't feel like he'll ever understand. There's a group of them who send out newsletters detailing the cultural differences between the newest federation planets, and there's a different alien dish in the cafeteria every day thanks to them.

He nods.

"I have a cadet who's tested out of his basic piloting requirements. Would you mind if I asked him to give you some additional guidance? Around your clinic commitments, of course."

Leonard sighs. What the hell has he got to lose?

-

"Oh, of course it's you," he says, probably in hindsight very uncharitably, when he arrives at the first of his supplementary sessions. 

Jim just grins and winks.

-

"I can't do this," Leonard says, approximately four and a half minutes later, when just the lurching of the simulator into active mode makes his stomach revolt. He only makes it as far as the waste bin, feeling like the previously-level floor is shifting violently beneath him.

Jim sighs and doesn't respond, but when he sits on the floor next to Leonard to keep him company his expression is thoughtful, rather than despairing.

-

"I hate you," Leonard says, after the third bout of retching. Jim has brought the waste basket into the shuttle and locked the doors.

"You just need to get used to it. Positive reinforcement."

"That is not what this is!"

"Hey, you managed a full sentence without retching! That's progress."

Leonard must be hysterical. That's why it feels like he's laughing as he settles back to sit on the floor of the shuttle.

"You'll feel better if you stand. Means the movement of the shuttle doesn't translate directly to your stomach."

"Can't." That was technically a full sentence, wasn't it?

Jim hauls him to his feel and deposits him in the co-pilot's chair. He doesn't even flinch when Leonard retches, although there's nothing left to bring up.

"I think if you drive it'll help. Being in control will help you anticipate the way it moves."

"Can I have a drink first?"

"I'll get you a water," Jim offers, snatches the flask out of Leonard's hand even though he had mostly been joking. He's trying, he really is.

Leonard falls into the pilot seat and attempts to look at the controls. Everything spins. His chest feels tight. "Fuck."

"We're maybe doing this in the wrong order. I have an idea."

"I think we might have different learning styles."

Jim is silent for a moment. Leonard's eyes are closed and he doesn't see the fond smile he's getting.

After “landing” the damn thing, Jim shuts the shuttle down, and they switch over to a different one where the smell is less overpowering.

Leonard still feels very shaky, but Jim changes some settings so that the simulator doesn't physically move.

With just the screen, Leonard lasts twenty minutes before he has to stop, but Jim has talked him through the launch sequence so many times he feels like he might actually remember it.

He still doesn't want to do it. But somewhere in the overload of sensory memory is the feeling of Jim's hands steady over his, guiding him. He focuses on that.

-

A number of sessions later, time snatched from around schedules that are suddenly suspiciously synchronised, when Leonard can actually get through them without hyperventilating or vomiting, Jim suggests they take an actual shuttle out.

"No simulator will ever feel the same as the real thing. And I'll be there the whole time. I won't let anything happen to you, Bones."

He looks so earnest, so far from his usual over-exaggerated confidence that Leonard can't even bring himself to argue. He feels like he might throw up, anyway, if he says any more than, "You better not get us killed."

"I'd never die in a way so uninspiring." Jim grins. Leonard is bizarrely reassured.

Somehow, Leonard takes off. Jim was right; he finds it much easier and less unsettling when he's piloting, and there's a physical weight, somehow, about the real thing compared to the simulator. Of course, they're also miles above the surface of the earth. If they crashed, they would first have several minutes in which to contemplate their demise, should they not die of cardiac arrest in the process.

"It's exciting, Bones." Jim is behind Leonard's chair, drapes his arms over Leonard's shoulders to tell him, breathlessly. Leonard knows that if he turns, Jim will be staring, transfixed out the front window. Up at the stars. It's daytime. The whole thing is deeply disorienting. "We're flying. Doing something mankind dreamed of for centuries. Miles away from the nearest person. I would have thought you'd like that."

Leonard leans back in his seat and Jim's hands, warm and sure, squeeze at his shoulders, massaging loosely. He's still suspiciously breathless. They both are.

"Don't you think it's beautiful? Those sources of light are evidence of life thousands of miles away. People just like us, doing billions of different things. Having experiences we can't possibly imagine. Discovering their own galaxies. Having ridiculous conversations. Imagining what aliens would look like, if only they could meet them."

"Contracting new and horrible diseases," Leonard adds, even though what he means is _I've fallen for you so hard and so fast that I don't know if I'll ever get up._

And to top it off, Jim laughs, low, right in his ear. "Creating art."

"Fighting wars."

"Inventing machines and coming up with concepts we can't even begin to comprehend."

"Dying horribly."

"Falling in love."

Leonard's breath catches. He does turn, then, to look at Jim. "I was going to say that next."

He can see the reflections of countless stars in Jim's eyes. They don't seem nearly as terrifying, that way.

-

Leonard works a double, or triple shift, maybe. Staggers into bed with no idea of what time it is and doesn't bother to set an alarm.

So of course, he finds himself wide awake at some ludicrous hour of the night. After a shower, he doesn't bother putting a shirt on, just makes something with a deeply questionable nutritional value to eat and settles on his couch to watch something stupid on the holo. He can't sleep, but he's too drained to think, and it takes him a moment to realise that the irregular beeping he can hear is an uncoordinated attempt at using the access panel for his room.

He'd be worried if it weren't so familiar. Reluctantly, he gathers himself up to slam his hand on the open button for the door and catch Jim as he stumbles in. He's wearing jeans and a white tee, not nearly enough clothing for how cold the nights can be, but he all-but throws himself into Leonard's arms without a wince or a hiss of pain and he doesn't smell of blood. He's heavy, lax and pliant and uncoordinated, but he has been before, staggering into Leonard's room drunk and desperate for company that doesn't insist he pretend to be something he's not.

Leonard is so glad to be that person that he lets Jim get away with far too much. This time, he gets his shoulder under Jim's and an arm around his waist to haul him in the direction of the bedroom. It makes Jim snort and press his face into the hollow of Leonard's neck, so torturously close to a kiss that Leonard's footing falters and they nearly both end up on the floor.

"Damnit, Jim," he mutters, because it's what's expected, and Jim clings tighter, trembling. Leonard can't tell if he's laughing or crying, but when he tries to look at his face, Jim looks back, and he’s doing neither. They're so close. Jim is so beautiful, even with bloodshot eyes and smudges of dirt on his face.

Leonard is too tired to be guarded, and he hates himself for his weakness in that moment, but it's Jim who closes the distance between them. Jim who kisses him, who surges forwards in the instant between two heartbeats. His lips are so soft. He smells like smoke and tastes like the Earth itself. While his skin feels cold beneath Leonard's hands, he warms quickly. He's strong and solid and never stops moving, keeps Leonard off-balance in all the best ways including as he tumbles them onto the bed, holding tight so he doesn't have to break the press of their lips for more than a second, multiple small kisses serving as the single long one that they should theoretically be allowed before they have to stop and think about any of this.

It's with uncharacteristic caution that Jim's tongue just teases at Leonard's, tries to draw him in for more, wetter and deeper. It's blissful. Leonard's heart threatens to pound right out of his chest and he can't get his hands on enough of Jim's skin to satisfy everything he wants, to get close enough. He would devour Jim if he could, wants to roll him over and pin him down and take.

Except- "Stop," he pants, between multiple brief, final kisses because if this is all he gets, all he can have, then he'll treasure every instant and be grateful. "We can't. This isn't right."

Jim, who is good and strong even when Leonard can't be, pulls back with -Leonard can't help but notice- distinct reluctance. His cheeks are flushed, his eyes dark, and there's a bruise across his cheekbone that Leonard feels terrible for not noticing sooner. He looks torn, flooded with guilt and regret. "Shit, Bones, I'm sorry."

"What? No, Jim, I should be the one apologising-"

"I just burst in here when you're trying to relax-"

"I always want this to be a safe space for you, where you never have to worry about anybody taking advantage-"

"It's just the way you look at me sometimes, like I matter-"

"And we're going to have to talk about this, once you're sober-"

"How are you so buff, I don't even- wait, what? I'm not drunk. You're drunk."

"I got up a half hour ago. I've been on shifts. I'm not drunk."

"Well- I've been on survival training. I just got back. Haven't had a drink in three days."

Leonard stares, baffled. He has no idea what to think. Jim kissed him. But he has no idea why. Was it just Jim acting out in some misguided attempt to blow off steam after a few stressful days? Just a surge of emotion that he needed to express physically? Or could he really-

The thought is terrifying. It's really happening. He's risking losing the most important person he has in this new life he's vaguely carved for himself out of the shambles of his past.

"You do matter," his brain catches up enough to say, at least, because he will tear his own heart out over and over before he lets Jim doubt that, and Jim's eyes light up with such a fragile hope that Leonard knows he has to try. "You're the most important person in my life. I can't lose you. But I also can't do casual. I want everything."

"With me?" Jim asks, and when Leonard looks at him with all the love he's been so carefully hiding, he falters. "Are you sure?"

"What, you think I don't know what a nightmare you are? How you flirt with everything that moves and involve yourself into multiple life-threatening scrapes before breakfast? You get in fights and stagger in drunk at all hours and you use up all my damn water rations and replicator credits. 

"But you spent hours teaching me how to fly that damn shuttle. You never expect me to be someone I'm not. You think so little of yourself but you're the most brilliant man I've ever known.  I'm sure I love you. Enough to be your friend if that's what you want-" Leonard takes a deep breath, had been planning to save his next words for a special occasion but this feels like it might just be one, for them. "Enough to follow you up there, no matter whether you want us to pursue this or not. I’ll serve on any ship in the ‘fleet if I can do it with you.”

Jim barks a laugh and hugs him gleefully. He's still on top of Leonard, who is still not wearing a shirt. Their bodies are very close. Leonard holds him tight, and when Jim buries his face in Leonard's neck, this time he does feel lips pressed unmistakeably to his skin, long and slow and covetous.

"So you wanna do this?" Jim asks.

Leonard takes a deep breath, has to ask. It can't always be assumed, any more. "You'd- be alright with just me? Nobody else?"

"I've only wanted you for months. I've only been with Gaila because she didn't mind that time I said your name instead of hers."

"That's- kind of pathetic."

Jim bites at his jaw and then nearly rolls them onto the floor with the force and fervour of his kisses.


End file.
